23/06/2015 5:18 PM http://www.newryjournal.co.uk/2011/02/20/loyalism-in-fews-from-17th-... Readers Stories Discussion Forum Guestbook 1800-1900, — February 20, 2011 18:26 — 0 Comments Loyalism in Fews from 17th century Loyalism has its roots in the confiscation, followed by the plantation of Irish land by the English rulers from Queen Elizabeth in the 16th century to William of Orange at the end of the 17th century. The southern part of county Armagh – known as the Fews, or to give it its Gaelic name Na Feadha (woods or wilderness) – had resisted plantation by nature of its remoteness, its mountainous terrain and because like most of Ulster, it lay outside the control of English domain. However in 1572 Queen Elizabeth, who had already shown interest in bringing colonists to Ulster, decided that South Armagh was ripe for plantation. Accordingly on 5 October 1572 the Queen granted ‘Orior, the Fews and Gallowglass country’ (around Markethill) to Sir Thomas Chatterton .1 In spite of Chatterton’s efforts which included building a fort at Camlough, his scheme came to nothing and his grant was revoked. Chatterton was killed shortly after in Orior, his brother was slain in 1585. A colony of Scots settled at Markethill in 1619 by John Henry Acheson was more successful with a ‘bawn of clay and stone …..and they are able to make thirty men at arms’. 2 The area around Creggan was able to escape the ravages of plantation until Cromwellian times when the lands of Henry O’ Neill were confiscated and Henry transplanted to Connacht. A large part of his estate (6,000 acres) was granted, in lieu of wages to Thomas Ball, a Cromwellian officer. 2 of 8 23/06/2015 5:18 PM 23/06/2015 5:18 PM http://www.newryjournal.co.uk/2011/02/20/loyalism-in-fews-from-17th-... Whatever plan the colonists had for Creggan, it was not hugely successful. By 1659 at the end of the Cromwellian era there were still 858 Irish there as against 373 planters in the Parishes of Upper and Lower Creggan. 3 About this time, a small colony of English Protestants settled in the townland of Shillan near Crossmaglen. The principal names were Hale, Mc Alister, and Marks; the other names are lost to posterity. The first Protestant Rector of the Parish of Creggan on record The Rev. Dromoren who was appointed to that benefice in 1617. Further colonisation took place in the year 1733 when several landed gentry, Edward Tipping, Alex Hamilton, James McCullagh, Adam Noble, and Randle Donaldson invited Presbyterians to settle in their estate. One of the earliest of the settlers, Alex Donaldson, sublet his land to Robert Mc Knight, Thomas McIlveen, and William Donaldson. William McCullagh, Samuel McCullagh, John Brown and Samuel Moffet also leased land from the Donaldson estate. Amazingly some of these same names appear in the Ulster Covenant some three hundred years later in the Crossmaglen area. The adjoining townland of Freeduff was settled by David Gray, Matthew Mahood, Sawney Clark, John Stitt, Joseph Perry and Robert Houstan. Also settled in the area were William McGaw, John Dougan, Robert Henry, William Spears and a family of the name of Davison. Many more settled in the north part of South Armagh – at Newtownhamilton which used to be included in the Parish of Creggan. ____________________________________________________________________ 1 Tomas O’ Fiaich, The O’Neills of the Fews, p.23. 2 John Donaldson, An Account of the Barony of Upper Fews in the County of Armagh, p.9. 3 Kieran Mc Conville, Teer: A Townland in its Historic Setting, p.16 —————————————————— In spite of plantation, the area, in the eyes of the planters, was still wild and lawless. In 1710 John Johnson of Aberdeen, an officer of service in Flanders, was duly sworn Constable of the Fews. Johnson was to gain notoriety with his zeal in pursuing outlaws in the district – villains to Johnson, heroes to the Irish. This association of planters with the forces of law would become a feature of Irish life that would last for centuries. In the service book of 1716, Colonel Nassau wrote, ‘ At the command of Mr. Johnson, the constable of that wild country (The Fews) struck fear in the natives ….We razed their cabins to the ground and whipped the curs, who cursed us in their Irish jargon’..4 The descendants of the British and Caledonian settlers each retained their national customs and had not assimilated into the native population. In great measure this may be attributed to the difference of their religious tenets, few inter-marriages taking place. Planters and native Irish were apart, ideologically and by temperament. ‘Some of them (the Irish) are subject to sudden gusts of passion, particularly when they are inflamed by liquors and are jealous with British and Scottish settlers, whom they are taught to believe are intruders and foreigners’.5 Throughout the eighteenth century, the plantation continued to grow and expand, particularly in the north of the county. Historically Protestant opinion was more entrenched in Armagh than in other parts of Ulster due to a long history of sectarian conflict. By the latter part of the eighteenth century, numbers of Protestants and Catholics were almost equal in the county as a whole causing conflict between the 3 of 8 23/06/2015 5:18 PM 23/06/2015 5:18 PM http://www.newryjournal.co.uk/2011/02/20/loyalism-in-fews-from-17th-... two competing communities. The folk memory of Protestants massacred by the native Irish rebels in 1641 loomed large in the Protestant mindset. Out of this sectarian strife was born the Orange Order after the Battle of the Diamond – between Protestants and Catholics – near Loughgall in County Armagh in September 1795. After the battle the Protestants assembled in a field and vowed an oath, ‘that would for generations curb popery in Ireland’. 6 That brotherhood became the Orange Order, spreading rapidly throughout Ireland. In 1798 Lodge 117, later named Whitewater Lodge was formed in Newtownhamilton in South Armagh and in 1823, Lodge No 153 was formed in the ‘ mountainous Fews’ and was called Armaghbreague True Blues. 7 In 1834 a Lodge was formed at Tullyvallen in South Armagh though it did not come into operation until much later. In 1823, Orange Lodge No 687 was formed at Aughragurgan, near Newtownhamilton in South Armagh. Richard Warmington was the first Master. Knockavannon L.O.L was formed in 1823 under Thomas Heaslip and L.O.L 1158 at Tullinageer, in 1856, formed under the South Armagh District, though it was in fact in County Monaghan. Thus some parts of South Armagh were well represented in the Orange brethren while others in the deep South were not. _____________________________________________________________________ 4 Johnson of the Fews, http://creggan .armagh.org//second. Html 5 John Donaldson, Account of the Barony of Upper Fews, p. 71. 6 Kevin Haddick-Flynn, Orangism, The Making of a Tradition, p.70. 7 Loyal Orange Institution of Ireland County Armagh Grand Orange Lodge, 312 the Anniversary of the Battle of the Boyne, Official Souvenir Brochure, p.23 ————————————- Mid way through the 19th century in what would be seen by many as the ‘Golden Age of the Empire’, South Armagh was one of the more troubled parts of that Empire. At the heart of that trouble was the land question because that land lay primarily in the hands of a privileged few. That few were mainly loyalist by conviction and Church of Ireland by creed. In the Fews district those land owners were principally Thomas Ball, a descendant of a Cromwellian adventurer who usually lived in England, Walter Mc Geough Bond who also lived mainly in England who had estates in Creggan and Newtownhamilton as well as in Upper Orior. James Donaldson also had a large estate in South Armagh which he inherited from his elder brother. Captain McCullagh owned estate near Camoly which had been purchased from another planter. Alexander Hamilton inherited land on the estate of Newtownhamilton and Creggan and James O’Callaghan owned land at Tullydonnell. Other luminaries of the privileged class in the area were John Johnson, descendant of Johnson ‘the heretichead-cutter’, Captain James Eastwood of the militia, Captain Slack, William Armstrong, Marcus Synott ‘who had a house and a beautiful demesne in Ballymoyer.’ 8 With the disestablishment of the Church of Ireland in 1869 by English P.M Gladstone, the ‘Empire’ in Ireland had reached its zenith: from then on that Empire would start to decline. Gladstone embarked on a policy of governing Ireland by ‘Irish ideas’.9 It was not the end of English influence in Ireland, it was 4 of 8 23/06/2015 5:18 PM 23/06/2015 5:18 PM http://www.newryjournal.co.uk/2011/02/20/loyalism-in-fews-from-17th-... not even the beginning of the end, but in the words of Churchill, it was perhaps, the end of the beginning. Various land acts passed by parliament had the effect of transferring the land from ascendancy landlords to small nationalist proprietors, reducing further the power of the ascendancy. The census of 1871 in Creggan revealed that the Protestant population was 361 Church of Ireland, 239 Presbyterian, 26 Methodist, as against 9,754 Roman Catholics, or 16.58% of the total population. The next census of 1881 showed a figure of 8,380 Roman Catholics against 287 Church of Ireland, 240 Presbyterians, and 9 Methodists. In total this made 536 Protestants. The 1891 census revealed 7291 Roman Catholics, 243 Church of Ireland, Presbyterians, 210 making a total of 453 Protestants and 7291 Roman Catholics.10 So in a mere 20 years at the end of the 19th century, the Protestant population of Creggan dropped from 626 to 453, a total of 173.